My Whole Heart
by starbuckmeggie
Summary: The night of the engagement


I curl in to Chandler's side, holding up my left hand so my new engagement ring catches the dim light filtering in from the world outside.

I'm engaged.

My face splits into a grin just thinking about it.

Chandler and I are going to get married.

My heart is so full right now I feel like it could burst.

"Happy?" he asks me, kissing the top of my head.

"Happier than I can possibly express. I love you so much."

"I love you, too."

We fall silent for a few moments, and I watch my ring sparkle, completely entranced. "This ring is so perfect. Where did you find it?"

"Engagement ring fairy."

I roll my eyes. "Fine. Don't tell me."

"I thought I'd lost you," he whispers suddenly, and I feel my heart drop.

"You could never lose me," I tell him, sitting up a little in bed.

"I almost did. Tonight; I almost lost you."

I shake my head vigorously, my eyes filling with tears. "No, you didn't."

"Then why did you go to Richard's?" The pain in his voice makes my heart break further; if I could go back in time and erase these last few hours, I would. In a heartbeat.

"I…I was upset."

He sits up, propping his back against the headboard. "So the best thing to do was run to _him_?"

I sit up fully, turning to face him, placing my hand over his. "No; it definitely wasn't a good thing to do."

"I mean, you see him the other night and you go running to him when we hit a little bump in the road?"

That's when I realize that I haven't told him about Richard's visit to my restaurant. "We just got engaged, honey—are you sure you want to talk about this now?"

"Monica, I need to know that this is what you want, that you didn't just say 'yes' because you want to be married. I need to know that I'm your first choice."

"You are my _only_ choice." I squeeze his hand for emphasis. "There will never be anyone else."

His face looks so sad, so…broken; I hate that I did that to him. It makes me feel so incredibly unworthy of the love this man gives me every day. I lean up and wrap my arms around him, a couple of tears leaking out of my eyes. "I'm sorry," I whisper. "I was just so…confused. Even though we'd never really talked about getting married, all of a sudden you were saying that you didn't think you'd ever want to. I thought that, after that whole debacle with the museum being open next year, maybe you were more freaked out than I'd realized. But that doesn't mean I should have done what I did. It was stupid."

"You didn't…" his voice trails off, and his arms wrap around my waist, squeezing tightly, his muscles tense.

"No! Nothing happened. I took maybe two sips of my drink, I complained a little, and I left, end of story. But," I sigh, my heart starting to hammer, "I do have to tell you something, and I don't think it'll thrill you at all."

"Do I want to know this?" His voice is muffled against my neck.

"No," I answer, pulling back so I can look into his eyes. "But I refuse to start our life together by hiding anything." I take a deep breath, hoping to find some sort of courage. "Richard came to see me at work yesterday."

I watch him physically recoil from me, almost as if I've burned him, and that simple action feels like a knife in my stomach. "He did what?"

I scoot closer to him, desperate for contact. "I was told someone wanted to compliment the chef, but then he showed up, and he said he wasn't actually there to compliment me, but he wanted to tell me that he still loves and wants to marry me and have a family with me."

Chandler's whole body is tense, and I can feel the anger coming off of him in waves. "Are you kidding me?"

I shake my head, tears forming in my eyes again. "He said that he hadn't been able to stop thinking about me since I had lunch with him last year."

"And even though he knew I was dating, he thought…what? That you'd immediately dump me and go running back to him?"

I shrug helplessly, sniffling as tears run down my cheeks. "I guess."

"What an ass." He looks down at his lap for a few moments, silent, and I hold my breath. When he finally looks up at me again, tears are in his eyes and I feel my heart constrict. On what should be one of the happiest nights of our lives, I've hurt him so deeply that I'm not sure if he can forgive me. Hell, _I'm_ not sure if I can forgive me.

You don't do this sort of thing to the person you love. You just don't.

"But that doesn't explain why you went to him."

I grab hold of his hand again, hoping he'll understand. "You had _just_ told me that you didn't think you'd ever want to get married. I could live with you not being ready for it, and I was okay with waiting for a year, two years, whatever it took to get you comfortable with marriage. But I didn't think I could be okay with _never_ getting married. And I was so…distraught over the whole thing, I wasn't thinking clearly. All I _could_ think about was that there was someone out there who wanted to be my husband, who wanted a life with me, so I went to his place. The whole time I _knew_ it was stupid, and I knew that he wasn't the one I wanted to be with. I haven't wanted to be with him for a long time. But I was mad at you, and you're the only one I want to be with, the only one I want forever with—" I break off as I start sobbing, unable to form words.

Chandler's arms are around me in an instant and I collapse in to him. "Don't cry, Mon." I feel his hands stroking my hair. "Don't cry."

"I hurt you so much," I whisper. "I never wanted to do that."

"Hey, I was the one trying to misdirect you with all of this."

I shake my head. "No; don't blame yourself for this. I was stupid. I was so, so stupid. Misdirection or not, I shouldn't have run to Richard. It was childish and juvenile and I knew it would piss you off. But even when he was standing in front of me, offering me the world, all I could think about was you and that if I couldn't have forever with you, I didn't want it with anyone. That's when I left. I told him I had to think about some stuff and I left to find you. Then Joey told me you'd been trying to throw me off track so I wouldn't expect it and…you know the rest."

He holds me quietly for a few minutes, comforting me even though he's the one who's been hurt. We rock back and forth slowly, my tears subsiding, his fingers tracing circles on my back.

"Can you ever forgive me?" I whisper.

"There's nothing to forgive," he tells me. "We were both stupid; if I hadn't upset you that way, you wouldn't have felt the need to go to him."

"It doesn't matter that I was upset—I shouldn't have done it. There's no excuse for it. I'm going to spend the rest of my life making up for it."

"No, you're not."

I swear my heart stops, a lump forming in my throat. "I'm not?"

"I don't want to get married with something like this hanging over us; that's not how we do things, and that's certainly not how I want our life together to start. You've apologized—that's enough. It's over and done with and all is right with the world."

"Just like that, everything's okay?"

He kisses my forehead softly and I feel some of the tension leave my body. "Yeah. You've apologized, I've apologized, we've talked about what happened, and it's done. We don't have to drag it out for another five years. We're not Ross and Rachel."

I bite my lip to keep from chuckling. As horrible as it sounds, it's not untrue; holding on to grudges is something Rachel and my brother excel in. "And you still want to marry me?"

He pulls away and looks at me, confused. "Of course I still want to marry you. Why wouldn't I?"

I wrap my arms around him, kissing him soundly. "Thank you," I whisper.

"I love you, Monica. Nothing is ever going to change that."

"I'm going to hold you to that because I can get pretty crazy. I don't think it'll get any better with planning a wedding."

"I'll consider myself warned."

We shift back into a more comfortable position, my head resting against his chest, our arms wrapped around each other. I know he's forgiven me—I can feel it in the way he's holding me. I just hope I can manage to forgive myself for this.

"So…can I ask why you wanted to throw me off?"

"I thought Joey told you all of this."

"Uh-uh. I came looking for you, and he got as far as telling me that you were just messing with me, that you had planned to propose, and I enlisted his help—that's a lot of candles to light. I never really let him finish the rest."

"Oh. Well, I was going to propose the other night, actually."

My head pops up and I stare at him, shocked. "You were?"

"Yeah; the night we ran into Richard, actually. I was all set to ask when _he_ showed up. Kinda ruined the moment, especially when he decided to sit with us."

"Oh, my God," I whisper.

"Yeah," he answers, nodding. "And everyone knew I was going to ask you that night, that's why they wanted to see your hand."

"_That's_ what that was?"

He looks at me incredulously. "You really had no idea?"

"Of course I didn't! Barely two weeks ago, you flipped out because I put our names on a waiting list to get married in two years."

"I didn't, though. Not really."

"You sure as hell sounded like it on the answering machine."

"I was…okay, I freaked out for a second. But Phoebe came in and overheard me on the phone. She convinced me to go down to the museum and talk to what's-her-name, and check the place out. It's beautiful, by the way."

"You really like it?" I ask, smiling.

"I love it. I hope you don't mind, but I put the deposit down on it. She said the dates fill up fast, and that we had to pretty much act then if we wanted it."

I actually squeal with joy as I reach up and kiss him. "Really?"

He chuckles at my enthusiasm, stroking my cheek. "Really. And I'd kind of already been thinking about asking you, you know."

"No, you hadn't."

"I was! Nothing concrete, but it had occurred to me that I knew I wanted to be with you forever, and what better way to be together forever than to get married? I mean, I guess I was a little thrown off by the sudden timetable, but…it's a year. It's not like it's tomorrow. And even if it were tomorrow, that'd be okay, too."

This guy…he's more than I deserve. He's so wonderful and sweet and forgiving and so many other things that it takes too long to try to explain. He's just perfect. "So, tell me the rest of the story."

"Oh, right. So, I decided to try to fake you out, make you think I was still all 'Chandler' about marriage; I brought Phoebe with me to get the ring, and then I told everyone else because I was so excited about it."

I shake my head, running a hand through his hair. "You, of all people, excited about marriage. Who knew?"

He grins at me, looking every inch like a little kid on Christmas morning. "I know. And here we are, all engaged and stuff."

"And stuff," I repeat softly. I climb on top of him, pressing my ear to his chest, listening to the steady thump of his heart. "You've made me so happy. And I don't just mean tonight."

"Me, too," he whispers into my hair, his arms tightening around me.

"I know technically I set the scene, but I can't imagine a better way to be proposed to."

"Yeah, I think it worked much better than the restaurant."

I nod in agreement. "This is where we became friends, and where we fell in love, where we've been building a life together."

"This was definitely more special." I bury my face in the crook of his neck, and he scoots around a bit, dragging the blanket over our bodies. "Promise me you'll never leave me."

"I promise. I'm only getting married once. You're stuck with me for life."

"Good," he answers in a sigh, and suddenly I feel exhausted; it's been a hell of a day.

Definitely not every day that a girl gets engaged to the man of her dreams.

I relax against Chandler for a moment, before my eyes pop open again. "I'm still a little mad at Rachel," I say suddenly.

"I know," he mumbles, mostly asleep. "I understand. But I think we've dealt with enough tonight. I just want to fall asleep with my fiancée in my arms. We'll deal with everyone and everything else in the morning."

I sigh deeply, my eyes falling shut, my body almost completely relaxed once again. I crack one eye open again, this time to look at my engagement ring again. I shift my hand a little, watching the stones twinkle in the night. This ring really is gorgeous.

"Go to sleep, Monica," Chandler mumbles suddenly. "It'll still be there in the morning."

"How did you…" I start to ask before I realize he's already asleep.

I let my eye fall shut, and fall asleep in the arms of my love.

*A/N…Someone (MeganLucy, maybe?) mentioned that this was a discussion we never got to see, so my brain started to formulate some stuff. Then I watched Chandler and Monica get engaged before work this morning (just their bits—I skipped through the rest of the ep), and felt pretty inspired. Again, though, sorry if it's not quite where it needs to be. I'm trying.


End file.
